Troy: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology #3)

by Stephen Fry

In some ways all this is not unlike the “Great Game” played by those avid Sherlockians who discuss Holmes and Watson as if they had been real men who truly lived and whose cases as related by Arthur Conan Doyle are to be treated as factual. A fun and fruitful game it is too. So let it be with the Trojan War. How much historical truth lies behind the story of the story I examine in the Appendix (page 240). But even if we believe a great deal of it really did take place, there is much inconsistency to deal with. I have already bellyached about chronology. In the main lines of the story as it has been handed down, there was at least an eight-year gap between the abduction of Helen and the final sailing of the fleet. This messes with the ages of some individuals in ways that I won’t even touch on here. Given the intervention of the gods and other magical and supernatural happenings, I have—as mentioned in the Introduction that you so wisely skipped—thought it best to tell the story of the war and its aftermath without attempting to dot every sequential iota or cross every chronological tau.